Where Filmed

Filming Locations: Where was The Revenant filmed?

The Filming locations for The Revenant capture the splendor of an epic landscape, and also the tough conditions of survival - and filming - in such a frigid environment. The 11 months of shooting was notoriously complicated. The Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu (Birdman, Amores Perros) was very clear from the beginning: it would not be a green-screen production; 93% of the movie takes place in exterior locations.

All actors are happy having a hot tea and relaxing in a studio between shoots. This would not be the case here: the filmmakers were looking for remote locations to give the feel of wilderness in snowy virgin conditions. Lead actor Leonardo DiCaprio declared that he had to do 30 or 40 of the hardest sequences of his career.

The weather was a major issue for this project. At first, The Revenant was only to be filmed in an extensive area near Calgary in Alberta, Canada, plus a scene shot in the neighboring state of Montana in the USA. But due to the lack of snow, the production had to move to southern tip of South America in Argentina. Contains no spoilers!

Most of The Revenant was filmed in Kananaskis Country, an area of parks and reserves in the Canadian Rockies situated west of Calgary. Image by Brendan Bell

The spectacular scenery of Alberta’s Bow Valley can become an extreme location in winter.Image courtesy of 20th Century Fox

A fort was set near Spray Lakes Road, with Castle Rock in the background.Image courtesy of 20th Century Fox and Anne Elliott

The strange church in ruins was built for the occasion, as was the frontier fort, the Pawnee village and the mountain of buffalo skulls. Image courtesy of 20th Century Fox

Another added difficulty for this project was the will of the film director to shoot only in natural light. Days are short during the winter season, and travelling to the distant sets took so much time, that the team had only a couple of hours a day for filming. Iñárritu commented that this is an incredible landscape, but the worst place for a producer to shoot a film. Image courtesy of 20th Century Fox

A battle scene was filmed nearby in the Indian Morley reserve, part of the Stoney Nation.Image courtesy of 20th Century Fox and cszmurlo

According to this article linked here, a crane and horses were transported up to 8,000 feet to shoot a scene near Fortress Mountain Resort. Image courtesy of 20th Century Fox

Some planes bombed the area in Fortress Mountain to provoke an avalanche.Image courtesy of 20th Century Fox

Pictured, the Badlands of Drumheller located northeast of Calgary. Another location shot in Alberta is the Dead Man’s Flats near Canmore. Image courtesy of 20th Century Fox and Mathew

In British Columbia, the Squamish Valley was used to film the sequence of the bear attack. The area is near the river in Derringer Forest, according to this source. Scenes with the group of trappers walking, hunting and setting a fire camp were shot here, in a place called Shovehouse Creek, also in the Squamish Rainforest.Image courtesy of 20th Century Fox and Mike

Now we move to the Kootenai Falls near Libby in Montana, USA. The dramatic sequence filmed here took ten days to complete. This is the same location as the 1994 film The River Wild with Meryl Streep. According to this local newspaper, the director of photography edited the background of the falls with footage of snowy hills filmed in Argentina. Image by Troy Smith

The last scenes of the Revenant were shot on the southern tip of South America. The small Olivia river near Ushuaia (Tierra del Fuego, Argentina) was the unplanned final set to end such an arduous and challenging production. Film director A.G. Iñárritu stated that he will never again make another movie like this, because “I am a crazy man, but not stupid”.

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For further information, we recommend the original thrilling novel by Michael Punke in which the film is based, and two updated guides from some of the national parks featured in this article. Also here is a link to the Blu-ray edition of the movie that includes interesting extras like "A World Unseen" – a documentary of The Revenant:

Having just been in a scene of the upcoming film Sully, nice warm, controlled environment, and seeing how hard everyone works, and now just having seen this film, I am in awe of everyone who worked on these shoots.

Kananaskis Country is a Provincial Park, not part of a National Park. The pictures are great but some picture titles and locations are wrong. Mt Isabel is nowhere near Spray Lake Road which comes out at Canmore which is 30 minutes drive east of trail head to Mt Ishbel, which is approx 10 km NW of Banff. Picture labelled Dead Man's Flat which is just east of Canmore (which is 1 hr west of Calgary) is most probably near Drumheller Badlands (which is about 2 hrs NE of Calgary).

I too found it hard to understand some of the dialogue. Felt I was missing a lot in some areas, especially when speaking with his son. Why didn't they cook the buffalo meat as long as there were 3 fires blazing....

Loved the movie, saw it twice, loved the feeling that you were there in the experience, falling off the cliff, being attacked by the bear, the wide angle lens that didn't cut scenes too much trying to get human perspective, as if it was live and real, the fog and blood on the camera lens, the sounds of the forest, wind, and snow, the pain, hunger, etc., the fact that the actors were put in the real harsh environments, acting was phenomenal, Leo's best film yet. Also, the dissonant music going on and off throughout the movie, the bear scene without any music, pure raw bear maul.

Ome thing that I want to comment on was the language critic above. I get it, but most of those guys talked like that back then, couldn't understand them, cursing, but that didn't bother me knowing the culture at that time. I actually liked that Leo and others didn't talk as much. A movie doesn't have to have too much talking to be a great movie, just as long as you know the story.

Amazing brilliant!!! Decaprio deserves an Oscar for this one. Hopefully the academy will do him right this time! I was so caught up in the movie I had my hoody on and over my head. I felt like I was there freezing and HELLOOOO, I am in Hawaii. Superior!!!!

this movie took my breath away. I thought it was an incredible film. it had us on the edge of our seats in suspension as the tale unfolds. Leonardo was amazing. this is award wining material. loved it, would definitely see it again

I liked how Glass returned to the woods after barely escaping them. His tenacity is the truest definition of bad-ass. I never was bored for a moment during this incredible film. The scenery was my favorite part. Kudos to the director for going to these great lengths to film. Legendary!

Wonderful film, wonderful performances, being from hot Australia, the scenery blew my mind, I felt for Leo crawling around a lot of the movie on his belly, it must have been hell. The makeup was incrediable, his flesh tears looked so real. Congrats to all concerned, great movie and congrats Leo, well deserved BAFTA and probably overdue if you do end up taking home the OSCAR

Besides great nature at display and superb acting, cast of native characters looked authentic. Southern dialect added to the authenticity of characters. Maybe one needs to see it once again to catch the entire story with context. Superb movie!

. . good movie, great effort by everyone and hats off for the director's persistence and cinematographer's brilliance in capturing the soul of the movie through realistic eye of the camera . . probably the most gripping since Mel Gibson's Apocalypto . . .

This was based on the true. Life story of John Colter and it took place in and around Three-Forks, Montana. Jim Bridger was a trapper with John Colter at times. Read up on John Colter. The script was torn from the history books with the standard Hollywood changes so as to not have to pay for the historic rights of families.

I went to the theaters to see this movie and was blown away. The acting incredible and the scenery was stunning. I was entranced from start to finish. I have always enjoyed many movies Leo DiCaprio had made but this one he outdid himself, definitely Oscar worthy. Im glad this won best movie, director and Leo for leading man, well deserved.